COMIC FIESTA 2008 BRIDGING THE CREATIVE DIVIDE

In its bid to help grow the creative content industry, Comic Fiesta introduced a slew of new activities namely live demonstrations and portfolio reviews which connects the industry with a largely untapped talent pool of creatives.

Petaling Jaya: Dec 26: The recently-concluded Comic Fiesta 2008 (CF’08), held this year at Sunway Convention Centre on 20 and 21 December 2008, has achieved new feats on all fronts this year. Besides securing an even larger venue, CF’08 has also introduced its first ever Portfolio Pavilion and a number of live demonstrations by participating sponsors. This is in addition to the usual art, cosplay and comic competitions.

Inspired by its “For Fans, By Fans” slogan, CF’08’s theme this year, called “Bridging the Creatives”, focuses on helping the very fans it seeks to cater. From an event that is designed to serve a budding community of animation, comics and games (ACG) fans, it now moves to improve the local creative industry. Hence the number of industrial events CF’08 is featuring this year.

Notably, the main event for CF’08, aside from the highly anticipated event competitions, is the Portfolio Pavilion. This new feature is basically a place where talents from all over the country, and some can bring their works to show to industry players who were present there. This includes Animasia Studios, Imaginary Friends Studios of Singapore, Foldees, GempakStarz, Eden Animation, Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) and more.

With such notable organisations participating, it is certainly an opportunity of a lifetime for those who seek to break into the creative industry and earn, firsthand, invaluable working experience. In fact, the Portfolio Pavilion is in line with Comic Fiesta’s main aim in being able to bring key representatives and icons of the Malaysian comic industry, and indirectly, continue to develop the local creative development industry.

It is the hope of the organisers to bring out new creative talent as well as young entrepreneurs into the local ACG industry. In addition, CF also exposes local talent and their works to the public and the industry at large. That is the basis of being a platform to showcase the emerging field of local creative talents.

These same talents will also be showcasing their works at the comic market, which has now expanded to include more tables and doujinshi (amateur) groups. To date, this is the largest local amateur comic market by far, collecting together doujinshi groups, merchandise makers and even fan-made goods all in one venue.

As for new comic participants, CF’08 also saw the presence of new exhibitors such as the renowned Imaginary Friends Studio from Singapore, which has made CF’08 its somewhat official debut onto Malaysian shores; Majolica Majorca, a local cosmetic firm that is keen to tap into the cosplay presence in CF’08; and Cherry Credits, a new Singapore organisation that offers online credit for its game and video content. Returning sponsors from last year include HP, Animax, Wacom, Grandtech, PC.com, Suncomics, and Anime Tech.

Besides its industrial events, art galleries, and ever-growing comic market, the organisers also used CF’08 to highlight their involvement in new key areas with partner sponsors. One major highlight is the charity artbook project that HP and AMD worked on. Leveraging on Comic Fiesta’s (CF) pool of artists, the two have produced a compilation of themed illustration that depict the future of technology solutions. The Comic Fiesta Charity Coffee Table book entitled “Animation Comes to Live: An Exclusive Collection of Anime Artwork” in CF’ 08. This 50 pages coffee table book features 30 artworks from renowned local talents such as Santa Fung, Maxsterism, Puppeteer, Ho Seng Hui, Alan Quah and other local amateur talents. The anime artworks were sold at CF’08 and all of the proceeds will go to World Vision.

“HP has always been a key supporter of animation-based initiatives, having had successful partnership-based 3D animation movie-making ventures overseas. And we’re happy to be supporting the drive for more creative local content and , a significant portion of which is driven by CF,” said Danny Lee, Country General Manager, Personal Systems Group, Hewlett-Packard (M) Sdn Bhd.

“Local talents definitely need a champion and a voice, and HP is proud to be associated with CF, which has grown to be the ACG showcase of the year for all Malaysians,” said Lee.

“We are proud to join hands with HP in supporting CF, the annual melting pot of creativity. It is exciting to be a part of an event that acts as a stage not only for comic and animation creators but also for artists of other genres. We believe in supporting such events as they help encourage expression and act as an avenue for artists to make their stand”, said Ryan Sim, Regional Sales Director, ASEAN, AMD.

“As with the AMD belief of providing the best platforms for visual entertainment, we hope that our support to these talented artists will help them continue to provide their best in the animation and entertainment industry.” said Ryan.